“If sharing information makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to continue these interactions,” Robinson says. In terms of safety for users, Uber has a slight advantage over dating apps because drivers need to pass a background check and the company uses GPS tracking on rides. Experts like Robinson, say efforts like this are a start, but she believes dating app companies have a responsibility to use some of their “innovation and bestdates.com app forward thinking” to create safer online dating experiences. “Our goal is to make meaningful connections for every single person on our platforms,” says a Match Group spokesperson.

What Else Can I Do To Stay Secure And Private?

Using apps even morphs into an activity in its own right, becoming less a way of meeting people and more a source of attention, validation and sexual intrigue in your pocket. Even just looking at an attractive person on your app will give you a hit of dopamine, making loyalty to a lover much less appealing. Just as you get a blip of joy from a like on social media, you get a hit of dopamine from a match on Tinder. It keeps you coming back even if you have found someone worth keeping. Even if you accidentally give up details to a romance scammer, you can take preventative measures to protect your accounts. Use secure passwords, a password manager, and 2FA on all your accounts.

This is why, at the Centre for Love, Sex, and Relationships at the University of Leeds, we are also launching a new research project on ethical dating online to explore how apps can become a better experience for everyone. By sharing proximity data, you may unintentionally reveal patterns about where you live, work or spend time. That information can be misused by people with harmful intentions, making privacy a growing concern in digital dating.

Sieler and Martin accepted the deal, calling it a game-changing moment for the company. The result, they argue, is a more intentional and less exhausting dating experience. Investigative reporter Emily Elena Dugdale worked on the Dating Apps Reporting Project, which was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s A.I. Accountability Network. Dugdale recently spoke with Morning Edition host Michel Martin about the team’s findings, and how Match Group has — and has not — sought to address them. Aura’s service does not monitor for all content or your child’s behavior in real time. Results based on a 2025 mystery shopper consumer study conducted by ath Power Consulting.

There’s also your DMs (usually for safety’s sake), and everything you do on the app. Meeting people offline (in a public place at first) is always the first step toward trust. Be very careful about doing any favors or trusting a match too much at first if you haven’t even met them in real life.

• In an online wild west populated by scammers and hackers, dating apps pose challenges beyond just finding a partner.
• Most dating apps (80%) may share or sell your personal information for advertising.
• Cryptocurrency investments are one of the more recent (and dangerous) online dating scams.

Phishing For Personal Information (identity Theft Romance Scams)

Violent sexual predators are using dating apps to target vulnerable victims. The best advice until you’re very sure about who’s the other side of the conversation is not to share personal contact info—phone numbers, email addresses, and definitely nothing in the physical world. If you’re disclosing social media profiles, bear in mind the insight this will give a stranger into your life.

So why are people that date online, experiencing more IT security problems than people that don’t? One obvious answer already touched upon is the fact that people involved in online dating do spend a lot of time online, and therefore might naturally come across more dangers than people who don’t. However, the study also shows that people are not protecting themselves properly when they are dating online. This is perhaps one of the reasons why people that use online dating websites are therefore twice as likely to experience an IT security incident than people that don’t (41% compared to 20%).

The scammer might also send you to a spoofed version of a site you recognize — like Facebook or Twitter — and steal your login credentials. Next, they’ll get the victim to open a legitimate cryptocurrency account and deposit money into it. Then, they’ll provide a link to a “special” cryptocurrency exchange for the victim to move their Bitcoin or Ethereum into. This exchange will show high levels of returns, prompting the victim to invest more. Jory MacKay is a writer and award-winning editor with over a decade of experience for online and print publications. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Victoria and a passion for helping people identify and avoid fraud.